News regarding the fixed foreign tax credit (“FFTC”)

In a judgment of 16 June 2017, the Belgian Court of Cassation ruled that, by virtue of (i) the general principle of law according to which international law takes precedence over national law and (ii) the direct applicability of the Double Taxation Conventions (“DTC”), Article 19, A, 1, para. 2 of the DTC France-Belgium prevails over Article 285 of the Belgian Income Tax Code and that, consequently, the Belgian Tax Administration must apply the FFTC on dividends from French sources collected by Belgian residents.

The Court of Cassation had referred the case to the Antwerp Court of Appeal, which rendered a judgment on 17 December 2019, in which it followed the position of the said Court of Cassation and granted the refund of the disputed taxes up to the amount of the FFTC not imputed.

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